Periodization discussion

[pakewi]

@NumberTwo

Unfortunately, working in the private sector does not give you the luxury of “time”. When I coached 100m sprinters, a running workout could take 2.5 hours or more. Most of this time was to allow for a gradual progression in warm-up, therapeutic interventions and, most of all, recovery between runs. And, when we performed block starts, I found very quickly that more time was required for recovery to ensure the athletes could repeat the quality of their runs. This is why Charlie used standing starts for all runs other than specific block work. The amount of energy expended from a deep position would dilute the quality of longer runs (i.e. 60m and above).

What it adds up to is that in order to optimize speed gains, you must give the recovery time identified by Pioneer and Pakewi. This point is not debatable. The “private sector gurus” will give their excuses and rationalizations for their programs, but they cannot burn the candle at both ends. In the final analysis, their programs become glorified calorie burning sessions.

We started a project with pro soccer players on their way to re-join the team after an injury a couple of years ago. It implied the use of very short training workouts (16-20 minutes total allocated time) with the aim of getting them ready to work with the rest of the team and be back on the field in the shortest time possible after rehab. Workouts were assigned daily,sometimes as doubles,most of the time as singles,and were done every day with no day off until the first full time match were successfully played. Of the total 16-20 minutes the only factor we kept purposefully constant by design was the total time allocated for recovery (15-out of 16 to 20- minutes).
Players were monitored and functionally evaluated in a number of areas,ranging from pure task performance to general physiological indicators. The results were so encouraging in all areas (display of performance capabilities,general and specific fitness to mention a few) that we decided to export the very same training format to athletes outside the team,and of different sport specializations, and eventually to private PT clients and even patients from all endeavours. All with rather consistent extremely positive results over time.